Survivor Legacy, or vidya games are dead

I come from a different time, not really all that long ago but shockingly distant in every way conceived or conceivable. "The world has changed", they say, though in all honesty the only possible construction of the matter'd be that the world has ended. I don't know what this shit surroundant is, or what the fuck's it even supposed to be -- but it certainly ain't anything like a world at all.

To put meat on the wind-bleached bones of that introductory paragraph above, allow me to proceed from the example of Survivor Legacy, a computer game. It was released earlier this year (by R² of all people, chief spielmaisters of the CAM effortⁱ in gaming) but developed by Gaming Hollywood, which indeed is about as culturally subservient as the name implies.ⁱⁱ

Here's the unexpected twist at this juncture in the story : the game's not even terrible!

It's not particularly creative, granted, but it is more Fallout than Bethesda's managed for the past two decades!ⁱⁱⁱ Moreover, in a mechanical sense it has the merit of strong execution : they've taken the classical base game (you know the shit, where you build "Farm" and "Barracks" and then go to the map and attack the guy 17:22 away to steal his foodwoodstonemetal, yes?) and melded it to the classical bonbon game^iv resulting in an interesting engine, upon which they've painted a very credible zombie apocalypse skin, and, most intelligently, drowned the player in so many speedups as to render the implicit timers included entirely manageable.

I liked it enough I've dumped a coupla hundy^v in exchange for game currency, which placed me firmly in all the top ten lists for the server^vi, a circumstance which yields the first interesting datapoint of our adventure : being as I was a major player, and unlike all the other carebears^vii very aggressive, I teleported my base next to a slightly lower solid player (he 17, me 18) and I proceeded to send all my army to batter him down. Here's what happened :

Yes, that's right : no dents. Nothing. This is how far the carebearing has come in the meanwhile : that dude from Vacation's taken the fuck over! This is the degree of narcisism currently prevailing! Back in the day... back in the world I come from, meanwhile disappeared, the balancing of such a game'd have been self-evidently that if I am willing to lose all my army, it'll probably take any one chosen victim out, and what deters me is the obvious observation that I can do this but once, like bees, and so it'd better be worth it.

Not so ; not anymore. The victim may not lose half, nor may the victim lose a fifty, a tenth, a hundredeth. The victim must lose nothing, that's the 2020 state in the field. And this 0% -- not 1% nor 5% nor 25% nor 60% nor naught or anything else besides 0% -- is an important measure, a voluminous variable. It controls many things, such as... well, for instance, how long before the pantsuit socialist goes to talk to the underground meat dealer, once the official Hillarystate-operated "butcher shop" is the place where they don't have meat (the place where they don't have fish being down the street) ? Not a day nor a week, not a month nor a year. Not a decade, not a millenium. Not anything. Back in the day -- any and all days before this current most retarded generation of narcissists really -- something like forbiding driving'd have been a plain exercise in impossibility : the people (something they still had, back then) would have simply ignored, and the state was more than welcome to attempt to mobilize the army to "enforce" their nonsense : for one thing, the army'd much rather have taken over the state upon such a request than attempted a losing battle with the people ; and for the other thing, people'd just have driven around them anyways, and if they managed to confiscate cars they'd either not confiscate enough to matter or confiscate enough to produce a riot, resulting in the beheading of everyone involved in the "enforcement" and "legislation" side of the conundrum. But now... see, not 60%, not 25%, not 5% nor 1%, in fact... where the hell is everyone ?

Everyone's lost, dreaming a little dream ; everyone's busy, gone, each and all taking a Permanent Vacation.

I got to take myself a permanent vacation
The sky's the limit but my plane won't fly
My nose is clean and lordie don't need no sedation
Yeah, yeah, and that's the reason why

Anyways, be that as it may : at this juncture I felt like digging through the maths a little bit, and so went looking for documentation.

Documentation, right ? You know, where players discuss the gritty numbers behind it all ? Like we used to, since the hallowed days of the dlh... Here, check this out :

That's right, last message from back in the closed beta days, and otherwise ZERO FOLLOWERS.

Social media has failed, I hope we can agree on this much, because if it ain't for communicating such things as I'm here looking to have communicated, it can't possibly be for anything at all whatsoever. Right ?

Pre-social media (in the shape of the publisher's own forum) is in no better shape :

That's right : zilch, zero, zip.

Nothing nowhere.

Nada.

I defy you to search, using whatever piece of shit you unconscionably favor : you will find absolutely nothing besides spun "content", stating ad nauseam the "list of heroes" or whatever other superficialia in that vein. Find, if you will, documentation for the battle mechanics, nay, find as much as some actually usable interpretation of what the fuck scout reports even say. The game's barely comprehensible (and at the cost of trial and error, strongly reminiscent of the keyboard mashing that composed the early sessions playing any of the ZX-80 games, because most didn't bother to list their interface keys anywhere, and most of the ones that did bother were beyond cryptic) yet find if you will someone else who pointed this out, or as much as observed it, somewhere, anywhere.

Vidya is dead in the simplest sense of all : I'm the last person left playing computer games. The entire budget of computer games in 2020 was whatever I dropped in here and there, one luxurious cup of coffee at a time. Everyone else got roundworms on the brain or something, I've no fucking idea, but consider : this is the best game that came out this year. Yes, it is. This sad aznism is -- and by a thick margin -- the #1 offering for 2020. And judging by the reception...

I got a sister man she really got a pinhead
She think she kinky but she can't get straight
She say she livin' but I kinda think she brain dead
Just excess baggage on a late night freight

1. The proposition that "The Chinese Are Mongoloids", deplorable extranumeraries about as bereft of creative capacity or inclination, artistic taste or sensibility, manly genius or human spirit as the average... I nearly said goat, but really such'd be an unwarrantable insult to goats. They at least find their own tree to climb. Sheep are probably the only mamallian equivalent of the dickless little yellow ladybois.

   Anyways, the proposition that the Chinese are mongoloids has its share of obdurate proponents, supporters and demonstrators. These are chiefly concentrated among the Eastern provinces, and will not let any opportunity go to waste that could even vaguely tend towards giving proof that indeed, there's nothing worth saving or capable of being saved in or around the Great China Sea. It's like some kinda cultural Nazism : those dorks were dedicated to showing Europeans are principally cruel, these dorks are dedicated to showing the Asians are principally vegetable. [↩]

2. To quote off their press kit,

   Digital Hollywood Interactive Limited (“Digital Hollywood”) is a leading global online game publisher for China-based game developers, with fast-growing in-house development capabilities for mobile games. We are the largest web game publisher in terms of revenue generated from publishing web games developed by China-based game developers in the international markets in 2016, according to the Analysis Report. In recent years, we strategically expanded our business focuses to develop and launch mobile games by enhancing in-house development capabilities to capture the market opportunity from the fast-growing smartphone users, and our mobile games immediately achieved considerable success in a number of regional markets.

   I preserved the Windos quotes for the lulz ; and for the visually inclined there's pictures, too :

   

   Whereas for the actuarially inclined here's their most recent filing with a fiat, HK-based MPEx-wannabe (HKEX 2022.HK for breadcrumbs). It shows them worth a few mil on paper and well, whatevs, they're the idiots that made Wartune. [↩]

3. Yeah, that's right, Fallout 2 was 1998. Look up Fallout Shelter on Steam sometime, if you're actually brave enough to attempt disputing this point.

   Or better yet, take my advice and don't. You'll live longer that way (or at the very least, you'll be less tempted to kill yourself). [↩]

4. You probably know this two, there's six heroes on your side which run (always to the right) into 2 or 3 waves of enemies, and thereby killing them loot one of six equipment items which they need to increase their plus rating, whereas in special ("elite") maps they do the same but get pictures of themselves, of which they need 20/30/50/100 to increase their star rating, and there's also experience which increases their levels and that'd be it. There's always a healing centaur girl, and a fire mage girl, and an electric girl and an archer and a minotaur and so on, and of course you have a "base" which has buildings which don't do much, maybe a tower of special plot coupons or somesuch. The model doesn't even have a proper name, but it's been cloned to death already. [↩]
5. Before you get too excited about this, understand that it's not just my dick that isn't like your dick. My life generally, and my expense account particularly aren't like yours -- not just because unlike you I have one, but also because my groceries bill is in the mid four figures each trip and even something as simple as taking the girls out for coffee and cake will ding more than what your weekly paycheck shows. This need not raise alarm : there's a lot of them, and they're young and gym a lot, which does provide for healthy appetites, and besides I generally buy top shelf, by choice. Suffice it to say that I'm still dumping the subjective equivalent of a cup of coffee into whatever game I happen to enjoy momentarily, it's just that my cup of copan> coffee's more expensive than you're used to. And better, too, of course, but be all that conspicuous consumption as it may : you're still well advised to pay the people who made a game you like whatever a cup of coffee is in your household. Because, self-obviously enough and implicitly-necessarily, if you do not, there ain't gonna be something for you to enjoy next year. Which is obviously enough as well as implicitly-necessarily how we even ended up here in the first place, but... well, what can I do, start the article over in this footnote ? Consider it included by reference. [↩]
6. Obviously the management of these games consists of releasing "new servers" every few weeks, because the Chinese are retarded. [↩]
7. When I joined the server was three weeks old ; I took a coupla days to catch up ; obviously in a few weeks (if my interest lasts that long) it'll be a long way down looking at everyone -- excepting of course for the single solitary other guy who's maxed his buildings already, being also, as I am, "VIP 9" (ie, $200 or thereabouts). [↩]